Most working-age Americans get health insurance through their employer, but even they are finding it tougher to afford medical care these days, a new study shows.
Researchers found that over the past 20 years, a growing number of Americans with job-based health insurance have been skipping medical care due to costs. Women have been particularly hard-hit.
The study, published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association, could not get at the reasons. But experts said there are some likely explanations, including rising healthcare costs and moves by insurance plans to foist more payment responsibility onto consumers.
“The U.S. healthcare system is unique in how privatized it is,” said lead researcher Avni Gupta, a PhD student at the NYU School of Global Public Health in New York City.
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About 61% of Americans younger than 65 get health insurance through their employer, and businesses use that benefit to help attract workers, Gupta pointed out.
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By 2020, the study found, about 6% of U.S. women with employer-sponsored insurance said they’d been forced to skip needed medical care in the past year due to costs. That was double the percentage 20 years before, at 3%.
The figures were lower among men, but followed the same pattern: In 2020, 3% skipped medical care because they couldn’t afford it — up from 2% in 2000.
Certain types of care were further out of reach than others, the study found — namely, mental healthcare and dental care.
